Microsoft's new Edge browser is fast, powerful, and beats the pants off Internet Explorer

Most of the software that's included with Windows 10 is
nothing special, but there's one bright spot: Microsoft Edge,
the new web browser that finally replaces the
much-maligned Internet Explorer.

Edge comes at a crucial time for Microsoft: Internet Explorer has
less than 20% share of the browser market, with 1% of the total
mobile market, according to the Adobe Digital Index. Meanwhile,
Google Chrome leads with 42% of desktop market share, and
Apple's Safari holds 58% of the mobile browser market, per the
same report.

The good news is that Microsoft Edge is a solid product, with
some cool features. The bad news is that there's not enough there
to sway committed fans of Chrome, Firefox, or the other major web
browsers.

Gotta go fast

The best part of Edge is its speed and performance. Internet
Explorer is notorious in developer circles for its long-time
refusal to adopt industry browser standards. Microsoft got better
about standards in recent years, but a lot of developers had
already abandoned it along the way.

That meant a lot of modern web apps and sites broke or
looked weird in Microsoft's browser.

But Edge is quick, snappy, and works with almost
everything. It's
surpassing Google Chrome in a lot of benchmark tests, and
supports all the same standards. Better still, I'm hearing
anecdotal reports that it's way easier on your computer, taking
up less memory and giving a laptop longer battery life.

Cortana

Another cool thing is its integration with Windows 10's Cortana
digital assistant. If you find anything on the web that you're
unsure about, just right click and select "Ask Cortana." A little
sliding drawer appears on the side of the screen with
information (news, definitions, headlines) about whatever you
selected, without taking you away from the website.

Screenshot

For instance, Microsoft says that Cortana is good enough at
scanning the context of a webpage to tell whether "tiger" is
referring to Tiger Woods or an actual, you know, tiger, just
based on the site you're reading. In practice, this is a little
hit-or-miss, but Microsoft is working on it.

Another thing Cortana does is helpfully pop up into the address
bar whenever you're looking at a restaurant's website. Click on
Cortana, and up comes that same drawer, with information like
Yelp reviews, the place's hours, and a menu, if it has one.

It's all in the name of giving extra context without forcing you
to tab away or open a different app.

Draw something

The final major feature of Edge is its annotation feature, where
you can draw directly on a website with your mouse or finger and
save it as a screenshot or shuttle it up to Microsoft's OneNote
notekeeping service. It's a little bit like Evernote's Skitch
app, but built straight into the browser.

Microsoft

It's a neat idea, but it's hard to think of a time when this
would be actually be useful in real life. I tested it out a
few times, satisfied myself that it works, and forgot it existed.

Wipeout

Edge is still new, and there are lots of little kinks to work
out.

Ultimately, it was one of those kinks that had me scrambling to
download Chrome on Windows 10: Writing articles (like this one)
in the browser became incredibly hard to do. I'd write a sentence
and wait 20 seconds for it to actually appear on the screen.

Obviously, not everybody is using Business Insider's web software
to get stuff done. But again anecdotally, little hiccups and
flaws like this one are popping up all over the place. And if
Microsoft wants people to use Edge for the modern web, it'll have
to tune it up, and fast.

Oh, and Microsoft Edge doesn't support browser extensions just
yet. Most mainstream users probably won't care, but power users
should take note.

Ultimately, Microsoft Edge works, and works well, as a solid web
browser. And since it comes with Windows 10, it'll get a lot of
immediate interest right out of the gate. It's definitely better
than Internet Explorer.

But for dedicated Chrome and Firefox fans, there's not enough
there to warrant a switch just yet.